Dictionary
of
American
Biography.
Edited by Dumas Malone.
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Vol. XV, pp. x,
647. Vol. XVI, pp. x, 621. 1935. Price, $12.50 a
volume.)
These two volumes of the Dictionary
of
American
Biography
extend, alphabetically, from Charles Adams Platt, archivist, to
William H. Seward, statesman. They contain in the neighbor-
hood of twelve hundred and fifty sketches and range through
every field of human activity, intellectual and physical. The
articles average about a page each in length. Each is the result
of conscientious research by a writer equipped with particular
knowledge of the subject, and each one closes with a more or less
comprehensive bibliography which enables the reader who desires
to do so to study the subject further.
of being superhumanly efficient. One wonders, for example, what
is meant by the statement that President Polk's expansion policy
added only 5,000 square miles of territory to the United States;
one wonders why Nicolo Sacco should receive three columns of
space when the average length of all sketches is less than two
columns and many individuals of really considerable attainments
are dismissed with only one; one smiles at the unconscious (and
unmerited) double meaning in the description of the frugality
of Henry Rosenberg, of Galveston, who, after working in a dry-
goods store for three years at eight dollars a month, was able to
buy out his employer.
Of the longer sketches, "Theodore Roosevelt," by Professor
Paxson, "James Ford Rhodes," by the editor, "Josiah H. Royce,"
by Ralph Barton Perry, and "Augustus Saint-Gaudens," by
Royal Cortissoz, stand out with singular distinction. Texan char-
acters, some of them deserving fuller treatment, are: 0. Henry
(Sydney Porter), by Carl Van Doren; Robert Potter, first secre-
tary of the navy of the Republic of Texas; Quanah Parker; John
H. Reagan and L. S. Ross, by Professor S. S. McKay; Johan
Reinert Reiersen, founder of a Norwegian colony in the Repub-
lic of Texas; William Marsh Rice; Thomas J. Rusk; James Finch
Royster, by Howard Mumford Jones; O. M. Roberts and John
Henry Sayles, by Professor C. S. Potts; Henry Rosenberg; and
Louis Juchereau de St. Denis. These names of a dozen Texan
characters illustrate what should have been done for some three
thousand other makers of Texas history by the promoters of the
Texas Centennial. Such a monument would be far more lasting
and useful than can be erected by mortar, stone and bronze.
The Dictionary
of
American
Biography
is fostered by the
American Council of Learned Societies, and its preparation and
publication were made possible by a subvention of more than
$500,000 donated by the New York Times Company and its late
President, Mr. Adolph S. Ochs. It is non-partisan, non-secta-
rian, and non-sectional, and is truly national in scope. Its value
is beyond calculation to school and college libraries, editorial
offices, teachers, and writers. Its cost is necessarily high, but
the publishers, Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, offer generous
terms to those who wish to buy on the installment plan. The
work was planned to include twenty volumes, with a supplemen-
tary volume to be issued every ten years or so.
Eugene C. Barker.
How to cite:
"Dictionary of American Biography", Volume 39, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v039/n2/review_DIVL2064.html
[Accessed Mon Nov 23 9:13:19 CST 2009]
