The Forgotten Founding Father by Joshua Kendall

Learn more about Noah Webster's life and legacy with your own paperback copy of The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture. This over 300 page biography is a enjoyable and informative telling of Webster's impact on American identity.

Noah Webster's name is now synonymous with the dictionary he created, but his story is not nearly so ubiquitous. Acclaimed author of The Man Who Made Lists, Joshua Kendall sheds new light on Webster's life, and his far-reaching influence in establishing the American nation.

Webster hobnobbed with various Founding Fathers and was a young confidant of George Washington and Ben Franklin. He started New York's first daily newspaper, predating Alexander Hamilton's New York Post. His "blue-backed speller" for schoolchildren sold millions of copies and influenced early copyright law. But perhaps most important, Webster was an ardent supporter of a unified, definitively American culture, distinct from the British, at a time when the United States of America were anything but unified-and his dictionary of American English is a testament to that.