A Is for American: Letters and Other Characters in the Newly United StatesWhat ties Americans to one another? What unifies a nation of citizens with different racial, religious and ethnic backgrounds? These were the dilemmas faced by Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as they sought ways to bind the newly United States together. In A is for American, award-winning historian Jill Lepore portrays seven men who turned to language to help shape a new nation’s character and boundaries. From Noah Webster’s attempts to standardize American spelling, to Alexander Graham Bell’s use of “Visible Speech” to help teach the deaf to talk, to Sequoyah’s development of a Cherokee syllabary as a means of preserving his people’s independence, these stories form a compelling portrait of a developing nation’s struggles. Lepore brilliantly explores the personalities, work, and influence of these figures, seven men driven by radically different aims and temperaments. Through these superbly told stories, she chronicles the challenges faced by a young country trying to unify its diverse people. |
Contents
3 | |
13 | |
2 | 23 |
A Universal Alphabet | 42 |
B Heathens | 61 |
4 | 82 |
Natural Language | 91 |
Strange Characters | 111 |
Wires | 137 |
Visible Speech | 162 |
Men of Progress | 187 |
Abbreviations | 197 |
Acknowledgments | 231 |
Common terms and phrases
Adams African AGB to AMB AGBP Aleck Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Melville Bell AMAA American Board Arabic Bell's Boston Boudinot Cadmus characters Cherokee Nation Christian Clerc communication Constantin Volney Constitution Courtesy Deaf and Dumb deaf-mutes dictionary Dissertations Eliza Symonds Bell English language essay Family Correspondence Federalist Flournoy Foreign Franklin French guage hearing Hiram Bingham Indian invention inventor John Pickering July language of signs Laurent Clerc lectures letters literacy London Mabel Marschalk missionaries Morse's native negro NLNW Noah Webster orthography painting Philadelphia philologists Philosophical political Press Prince printed reported republic Revolution Samuel F. B. Morse Samuel Morse schools Sequoyah sign language slavery slaves SMLJ Society sounds speak spelling book syllabary teach the deaf telegraph Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet Timothy Pickering tion tongue United universal alphabet Visible Speech Volney Washington William Thornton Worcester words writing system wrote York