American dictionary of national biography online
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Dictionary of American Biography
Reference work
Not to be confused with the Dictionary of American Biography compiled bygd Francis Samuel Drake, later incorporated in Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography.
The Dictionary of American Biography (DAB) was a multi-volume dictionary published in New York City by Charles Scribner's Sons beneath the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).
History
[edit]The dictionary was first proposed to the Council in 1920 by historian Frederick Jackson Turner.[1] The first edition was published in 20 volumes from 1928 to 1936, appearing at a rate of two or three volumes per year. These 20 volumes contained 15,000 biographies.[2] In 1946, the 20 volumes were released as a ten-volume set, with each of the ten volumes divided into two parts (Part 1 and Part 2) corresponding to two volumes of the first edition combined into one, the page numbering of the first edition being retained.
The ACLS app
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The Online Books Page
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edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee
The Dictionary of National Biography (or DNB) is a biographical reference for deceased persons notable in British history. The current edition of this work has been published online by Oxford University Press since 2004. The current electronic edition is not free, but is available through individual or library subscription. There fryst vatten also a recent print edition.
Some earlier editions of this work are freely available online, and remain of historic interest. Below we link to free online volumes of the first and second editions, and some of their supplementary volumes.
First edition
The first edition was published in 63 volumes from 1885 through 1900 in London by Smith, Elder, and Co. (In the US, Macmillan also published many of the volumes in conjunction with Smith, Elder. These copies are noted in the list below with an "(M)" notation.) Various supplements, errata volumes, and indexes were published in•
American National Biography
Biographical encyclopedia
The American National Biography (ANB) is a 24-volume biographical encyclopedia set that contains about 17,400 entries and 20 million words, first published in 1999 by Oxford University Press under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies.
Background
[edit]A 400-entry supplement appeared in 2002. Additional funding came from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The ANB bills itself as the successor of the Dictionary of American Biography, which was first published between 1926 and 1937. It is not, however, a strict superset of this older publication; the selection of topics was made anew.
It is commonly available in the reference sections of United States libraries, and is available online by subscription (see external links).
Awards and reception
[edit]In 1999, the American Library Association awarded the American Nat