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At the height of the Progressive Era, a small circle of scholars and educators launched a zealous but failed effort to reform American spelling. Bankrolled by Andrew Carnegie, the Simplified Spelling movement epitomized the era's much-chronicled passion for “efficiency”: By replacing words like through and although with thru and altho, the simplifiers said, citizens would save both time and money. Yet the rapid demise of the campaign also highlights the limits of America's efficiency craze, even during its supposed heyday. Although some critics invoked the efficiency idiom against Simplified Spelling, questioning its utility and practicality, others denounced efficiency itself. Even if simplification made spelling more efficient, they said, Americans should retain their older forms in the name of higher values: beauty, habit, and tradition. Their rejection of Simplified Spelling stood as a standing rebuke to the gospel of efficiency, which never quite gained the full-throated worship that its high priests imagined.
1 F. A. March, opening address, Symposium on “Simplified Spelling,” 137–39, and address by John M. Gregory, 169–72, American Anthropologist 6 (Apr. 1893); Mencken, H. L., The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, 3rd ed. (New York, 1923), 251.
2 Gilbreth, Frank B., “The Standardization of Spelling,” Society of Industrial Engineers Bulletin 5 (Sept. 1923): 5. On the efficiency and management philosophies of Frank Gilbreth and his wife, Lillian, see Corwin, Sharon, “Picturing Efficiency: Precisionism, Scientific Management, and the Effacement of Labor,” Representations 84 (Autumn 2003): 139–65; Graham, Laurel D., “Domesticating Efficiency: Lillian Gilbreth's Scientific Management of Homemakers, 1924–1930,” Signs 24 (Spring 1999): 633–75.
3 Hays, Samuel P., Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890–1920 (Cambridge, MA, 1959); Callahan, Raymond P., Education and the Cult of Efficiency (Chicago, 1962). Other influential interpretations of efficiency in the Progressive Era include Haber, Samuel, Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era, 1890–1920 (Chicago, 1964); Tichi, Cecelia, Shifting Gears: Technology, Literature, Culture in Modernist America (Chapel Hill, 1987); Kanigel, Robert, The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency (New York, 1997).
4 Alexander, Jennifer Karns, The Mantra of Efficiency: From Waterwheel to Social Control (Baltimore, 2008).
5 Hawthorne, Hildegarde, “Spelling Reform,” New York Times, Mar. 31, 1906.
6 Bledstein, Burton J. and Johnston, Robert D., eds., The Middling Sorts: Explorations in the History of the American Middle Class (New York, 2001); Beckert, Sven, The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850–1896 (New York, 2001); Aldrich, Nelson W. Jr, Old Money: The Mythology of America's Upper Class (New York, 1988).
7 See, for example, Montgomery, David, The Fall of the House of Labor (New York, 1987), 214–56; Rodgers, Daniel T., The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850–1920 (Chicago, 1974), 153–81; Noble, David F., America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York, 1977), 257–320.
8 Gilbreth, , “The Standardization of Spelling,” 6.
9 Vivian, John V., “Spelling an End to Orthographical Reforms: Newspaper Response to the 1906 Roosevelt Simplifications,” American Speech 54 (Autumn 1979): 164; Theodore Roosevelt to Thomas R. Lounsbury, Apr. 30, 1907, folder 389, box 18, Thomas R. Lounsbury Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Yale University Library.
10 Kottmeyer, William, Except after C: The Story of English Spelling (New York, 1988), 94, 118, 132; Beason, Larry, Eyes before Ease: The Unsolved Mysteries and Secret Histories of Spelling (New York, 2007), 152, 155; Cmiel, Kenneth, Democratic Eloquence: The Fight over Popular Speech in Nineteenth-Century America (New York, 1990), 83–84, 86.
11 March, Francis A., “The Spelling Reform,” Bureau of Education Circular of Information No. 8, 1893 (Washington, 1893), 15–16, 29, 7; Vaile, E. O., Our Accursed Spelling. What to Do with It (Chicago, 1901), 64; Charles P. G. Scott to Thomas R. Lounsbury, Mar. 4, 1909, folder 402, box 19, Lounsbury Papers; Matthews, Brander, “Is Spelling Reform, Ten Years Old, A Success?” New York Times, Aug. 27, 1916.
12 Oliver, Lawrence J., Brander Matthews, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Politics of American Literature, 1880–1920 (Knoxville, TN, 1992), 119–21; Melvyl Dewey, “Carnegie spelling conference,” Mar. 24, 1904, folder 12, box 5; Charles P. G. Scott to Thomas R. Lounsbury, May 18, 1905, folder 401, box 19; Brander Matthews to Lounsbury, June 20, 1905, folder 315, box 15, all in Lounsbury Papers; Lounsbury to Matthews, May 11, 1905, box 14, Brander Matthews Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Columbia University Library; Matthews, Brander, These Many Years: Recollections of a New Yorker (New York, 1917), 441. The twelve shortened words were often called the “NEA words,” because the National Education Association had endorsed them in 1898; see Wesley, Edgar B., National Education Association: The First Hundred Years (New York, 1957), 221.
13 New York Times, Mar. 13, 1906; Vivian, , “Spelling an End to Orthographical Reforms,” 164; Dalton, Kathleen, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (New York, 2002), 318; Theodore Roosevelt to Matthews, Brander, May 5, 1894, in The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt and Brander Matthews, ed. Oliver, Lawrence J. (Knoxville, TN, 1995), 78; Chessman, G. Wallace, Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Power (Boston, 1969), 144–45; Roosevelt, Theodore to Stillings, Charles Arthur, Aug. 27, 1906, in The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Morison, Elting E., vol. 5 (Cambridge, MA, 1952), 389–90. Roosevelt actually issued two spelling orders from Oyster Bay in August 1906. In the first one, on August 20, he ordered Public Printer Charles A. Stillings to use the 300 SSB words in “all Government publications.” A week later, on August 27, he limited the order to publications of “executive departments.” A week after that—and, apparently, without the president's approval—Stillings extended it to “all Government publications,” returning to the spirit of Roosevelt's initial directive. Vivian, , “Spelling an End to Orthographical Reforms,” 164; Ranow, George R., “Simplified Spelling in Government Publications,” American Speech 29 (Feb. 1954): 36.
14 Vivian, , “Spelling an End to Orthographical Reforms,” 165; New York Times, Mar. 16, 1906; Shaw, Albert, A Cartoon History of Roosevelt's Career (New York, 1910), 149–50; Payne, Darwin, Owen Wister: Chronicler of the West, Gentleman of the East (Dallas, 1985), 153, 245–46; Wister, Owen, How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee (New York, 1907), 60–61.
15 Sullivan, Mark, Our Times: The United States, 1900–1925, pt. 3 (New York, 1930), 171, 184–85; untitled editorial, Nation, Aug. 30, 1906, 173; Theodore Roosevelt to John St. Loe Strachey, Sept. 11, 1906, in Morison, , Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 404–05; Roosevelt to William Henry Moody, Sept. 13, 1906, in Morison, , Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 409–10; Congressional Record, 59th Cong., 2nd sess. (Dec. 12, 1906), 312; Theodore Roosevelt to Brander Matthews, Dec. 16, 1906, in Oliver, , Letters of Theodore Roosevelt and Brander Matthews, 294–95.
16 SSB, Circular No. 12 (Mar. 12, 1907): 9, 1; New York Times, Apr. 28, 1906; Thomas Wentworth Higginson to Brander Matthews, Sept. 19, 1906, Matthews Papers; Vivian, , “Spelling an End to Orthographical Reforms,” 169; SSB, Circular No. 18 (Jan. 30, 1908): 3; SSB, Circular No. 25 (Jan. 25, 1909): 1; Matthews, “Is Spelling Reform, Ten Years Old, a Success?”; Charles P. G. Scott to W. H. Wilcox, Sept. 29, 1913, “W” folder, box 80, Godfrey Dewey Papers, Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library; Simplified Spelling. List of Signers in Philadelphia and Suburbs (New York, n.d. [1908]), 1–3. For accounts suggesting that the simplified spelling movement died amid the 1906 controversy over Roosevelt's order, see Dornbusch, Clyde H., “American Spelling Simplified by Presidential Edict,” American Speech 36 (Oct. 1961): 236–38; Vivian, , “Spelling an End to Orthographical Reforms,” 172–73.
17 “Simplified Spelling in Colleges,” Jan. 26, 1917, in “College Questionary” folder, and “Action of State Teachers Associations,” Mar. 30, 1917, in “Teachers Associations” folder, both in box 31, Dewey Papers; H. L. Mencken, The American Language, 4th ed. (New York, 1949), 401; Kottmeyer, Except after C, 136; Chicago Tribune, Nov. 19, 1912; Nicholas Murray Butler to Brander Matthews, Apr. 4, 1906, “Matthews, (James) Brander” folder, box 254, Nicholas Murray Butler Papers, Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Columbia University; Abraham Tauber, “Spelling Reform in the United States” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1958), 195; Charles P. G. Scott to R. S. Woodward, Sept. 2, 1910, “R. S. Woodward” folder, box 80, Dewey Papers; “Simplified Spelling from the Scholarly Standpoint and with Reference to the Masses: The Argument for Simplified Spelling,” Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Education Association 49 (1911): 654.
18 Charles P. G. Scott to Andrew Carnegie, Apr. 24, 1911; Henry S. Pritchett to Carnegie, May 11, 1911, both in folder 14, box 325, Carnegie Corporation of New York Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Columbia University Library; Krass, Peter, Andrew Carnegie (Hoboken, NJ, 2002), 505–06; “The Reminiscences of Godfrey Dewey” (1972), 10, Oral History No. 854, conducted by Dr. Ben D. Wood, Oral History Research office, Columbia University Library; Vivian, “Spelling an End to Orthographical Reforms,” 173.
19 “Report of Advisory Committee on Simplification of Spelling,” Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Education Association 44 (1905): 283; Lippmann, Walter, Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest (1914; Westport, CT, 1978), 16, 147; Hollinger, David A., “Science and Anarchy: Walter Lippmann's Drift and Mastery,” American Quarterly 29 (Winter 1977): 475. See also White, Morton G., Social Thought in America: The Revolt against Formalism (New York, 1949); Wiebe, Robert H., The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York, 1967).
20 Address by John M. Gregory, Symposium on “Simplified Spelling,” 169; Calvin Thomas, “The Amelioration of Our Spelling” in SSB, Circular No. 3 (Apr. 2, 1906): 2; Vaile, , Our Accursed Spelling, 108; New York Times, Apr. 1, 1906; Matthews, Brander, “How to Get Simplified Spelling into the Schools,” New York Times, Aug. 25, 1906.
21 Wister, , How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee, 94; Arvin Olin questionnaire, May 12, 1914, “Letters in Reply to Hopkins Questionary” folder, box 31, Dewey Papers; Diner, Steven J., A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era (New York, 1998), 200; Scott, Charles P. G. to Wise, Byrd D., Apr. 15, 1912, “W” folder, box 80, Dewey Papers; “English Spelling Condemd,” Spelling 1 (May 1887): 16; Shawan, J. A., “Simplified Spelling,” Ohio Educational Monthly 56 (July 1907): 359, 355.
22 Brewster, H. W., “Spelling Reform,” Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Education Association 30 (1891): 150; New York Times, Mar. 13, 1906; Seerley, Homer H., “The Attitude of the Leaders of Public Education Toward Simplified Spelling,” Educational Review 36 (1908): 189; New York Times, Apr. 1, 1906; Lounsbury, Thomas R., English Spelling and Spelling Reform (New York, 1909), 52, 54.
23 Matthews, , These Many Years, 447; “Impressiv Silence,” Simplified Spelling Bulletin 2 (Sept. 1910): 18; “In the Educational World,” Simplified Spelling Bulletin 3 (Dec. 1911): 27; Lounsbury, , English Spelling and Spelling Reform, 37; Shawan, , “Simplified Spelling,” 358; “Dr. Maxwell's Address,” Simplified Spelling Bulletin 3 (June 1911): 5.
24 “Recent Opinions of Educators,” SSB, Circular No. 7 (Sept. 27, 1906): 5–6; Richman, Julia, “Spelling in the East Side Schools of New York,” Educational Review 35 (Feb. 1908): 163, 160; O. E. [sic] Vaile, , Pro and Con of Spelling Reform, ed. Burnz, Eliza B. (New York, 1882), 9; New York Times, Sept. 8, 1906.
25 “Report of the Committee on Amended Spelling,” Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Education Association 38 (1899): 353; Broomell, George D., “Our New Possessions and the English Language,” Independent, Sept. 18, 1902, enclosed with Emmet Ensmore to Theodore Roosevelt, Sept. 26, 1902, file 3140–18, box 322, Bureau of Insular Affairs Records, Record Group 350, National Archives, College Park, MD; “Philippines and Filipinos,” Simplified Spelling Bulletin 2 (Sept. 1910): 21; New York Times, Mar. 25, 1906; Wall, Joseph Frazier, Andrew Carnegie (1970; Pittsburgh, 1989), 890–91.
26 Campbell, Charles S. Jr, Anglo-American Understanding, 1898–1903 (Baltimore, 1957), 10; Anderson, Stuart, Race and Rapprochement: Anglo-Saxonism and Anglo-American Relations, 1895–1904 (Rutherford, NJ, 1981), 53–54; Kramer, Paul A., “Empires, Exceptions, and Anglo-Saxons: Race and Rule between the British and United States Empires, 1880–1910,” Journal of American History 88 (Mar. 2002): 1320–21; Beason, , Eyes before Ease, 164; “Annual Report,” in SSB, Circular No. 12 (Mar. 12, 1907): 10; Charles P. G. Scott to Thomas Lounsbury, Sept. 12, 1908, folder 401, box 19, Lounsbury Papers; Croissant, Dewitt C., “English as a World Language,” 1916, “D.C.C.-S.S. Articles” folder, box 31, Dewey Papers.
27 Shaw, , A Cartoon History of Roosevelt's Career, 149; New York Times, Apr. 30, 1906; Congressional Record 59th Cong., 2nd sess., (Dec. 12, 1906), 314.
28 Address by Spofford, A. R., Symposium on “Simplified Spelling,” 155; S. F. Pearsall to Charles E. Sprague, Dec. 11, 1906, “Newspapers” folder, box 31, Dewey Papers; W. S. Athearn to Homer H. Seerley, Nov. 16, 1905, Homer H. Seerley Papers, University Record Series 02/02/01, Special Collections, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls; Clark, J. S., “Real Simplified Spelling,” Nation, Nov. 8, 1906, 390; “Report of the Committee on Economy of Time, I: The Mechanics of Writing,” English Journal 8 (Feb. 1919): 114.
29 Watson, E. H., The Spelling Reform Question Discussed (New York, 1880), 271–72; “Simplified Spelling,” Catholic Fortnightly Review 13 (Dec. 15, 1906): 783; Searle, George M., C.S.P., , “The Present Fad of Spelling Reform,” Catholic World 84 (Oct. 1906): 5; New York Age, Dec. 13, 1906; “The President's Spelling Reform,” Voice of the Negro 3 (Oct. 1906): 308; Homer H. Seerley to O. C. Blackmer, May 22, 1912, Seerley Papers.
30 “In Favor of Spelling Reform,” Pennsylvania-German 7 (Oct. 1906): 326; Gaelic American, Dec. 22, 1906; Gaelic American, Apr. 20, 1907; Leo Wise to Simplified Spelling Board, June 3, 1914, “W” folder, box 80, Dewey Papers; Hugo Münsterberg, “The World Language,” McClure's, Nov. 1906, 102–03, 105.
31 “The Spelling Reform,” Pennsylvania School Journal 25 (June 1877): 464; Kliebard, Herbert M., The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893–1958, 3rd ed. (New York, 2004), 6–7, 89–92; Brinton, Daniel, “Spelling Reform” a Dream and Folly (n.p., 1896), 3; Shaw, Esther E., “Is Spelling a Failure?” Educational Review 42 (Sept. 1911): 171.
32 New York Times, Mar. 17, Sept. 8, 1906; “Editor's Easy Chair,” Harper's Monthly Magazine, Aug. 1906, 637; Max Eastman, “Why English Does Not Simplify Her Spelling” [1909] in Eastman, , Journalism Versus Art (New York, 1916), 132.
33 Eastman, , “Why English Does Not Simplify Her Spelling,” 114–15, 144, 139; Rossinow, Doug, Visions of Progress: The Left-Liberal Tradition in America (Philadelphia, 2008), 56.
34 Henry Cabot Lodge to Thomas Lounsbury, June 6, 1907, folder 276, box 12, Lounsbury Papers; “Simplified Spelling,” Journal of the Knights of Labor (Aug. 1906): 11; Los Angeles Times, Mar. 15, 1906; “Reformed English Spelling,” New Orleans Picayune, Feb. 23, 1909, “Newspapers” folder, box 31, Dewey Papers; “Simplified Spelling from the Scholarly Standpoint and with Reference to the Masses,” 657; New York Times, Oct. 25, 1906.
35 Gerstle, Gary, “The Protean Character of American Liberalism,” American Historical Review 99 (Oct. 1994): 1073; “Discussion-Subjection: Simplified Spelling,” Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Education Association 40 (1901): 216–17; “The President's Spelling Reform,” 308; Shorey, Paul, “Spelling Reform in Extremis,” Dial, Nov. 1, 1909, 321, 323.
36 Mencken, H. L., “The Dizzy Rise (and Ensuing Bust) of Simplified Spelling,” New Yorker, Mar. 7, 1936.
37 Raymond A. Schwegler questionnaire, May 22, 1914, “Letters in Reply to Hopkins Questionary” folder, box 31, Dewey Papers; “Genuine Phonetic Spelling,” Nation, Oct. 4, 1906, 279; Kottmeyer, , Except after C, 99; Thomas, Calvin, “Plea for Simplified Spelling,” Nation, Oct. 11, 1906, 302; Cornelius Richert to Edwin M. Hopkins, June 14, 1914, “Letters in Reply to Hopkins Questionary” folder, box 31, Dewey Papers; American Israelite, Aug. 30, 1906.
38 Scott, Charles P. G. to Publisher, Christian Intelligencer, Aug. 31, 1909, “Newspapers” folder, box 31, Dewey Papers; McGerr, Michael, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America (New York, 2003), 77–117; R. U. Johnson to E. C. Stedman, Aug. 30, 1906, Robert Underwood Johnson Letters to E. C. Stedman, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University Library, Pennsylvania State University, State College; Bonaparte, Charles J., “Experiences of a Cabinet officer under Roosevelt,” Century, Mar. 1910, 753.
39 New York Times, Sept. 22, 1906; Marshall, Helen E., “Simplified Spelling—and David Felmley,” Alumni Quarterly [Illiinois State University] 43 (May 1954): 8–9, Papers of David Felmley, Special Collections, Illinois State University Library, Normal; Homer H. Seerley to David Felmley, Apr. 22, 1910, Seerley Papers; New York Herald Tribune, Apr. 6, 1907; Charles P. G. Scott to David Felmley, May 24, 1912, Felmley Papers; Lounsbury, , English Spelling and Spelling Reform, 82–83.
40 “Annual Report,” in Simplified Spelling Board, Circular No. 12 (Mar. 12, 1907): 11–12; New York Times, Nov. 25, 1906; Jackson Lears, T. J., No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880–1920 (New York, 1981), xvi; Zimmerman, Jonathan, Distilling Democracy: Alcohol Education in America's Public Schools, 1880–1920 (Lawrence, KS, 1999), 6; Homer H. Seerley et al. to Presidents and Faculties of State Normal Schools, Apr. 28, 1910, folder 410, box 20, Lounsbury Papers; Gerstle, , “Protean Character of American Liberalism,” 1073.
41 Rodgers, Daniel T., Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, MA, 1998); Alexander, Mantra of Efficiency; Lounsbury, , English Spelling and Spelling Reform, 48–50; Geddes, J. Jr, “What Can Most Wisely Be Done to Hasten Simplified Spelling?” Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Education Association 45 (1906): 153; “In Favor of Spelling Reform,” 326.
42 Sebba, Mark, Spelling and Society: The Culture and Politics of Orthography around the World (Cambridge, 2007), 132–56; Lounsbury, , English Spelling and Spelling Reform, 42, 46; Sheridan, Marion, “The Reasons Why a Board Should Not Try to Fix the Language,” New York Times, Jan. 22, 1911; Corwin, , “Picturing Efficiency,” 141; Tichi, Shifting Gears.
43 See, for example, Mattson, Kevin, “History as Hope: The Legacy of the Progressive Era and the Future of Political Reform in America” in Democracy's Moment: Reforming the American Political System for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Hayduk, Ronald and Mattson, Kevin (New York, 2002), 16; Johnston, Robert D., “Re-Democratizing the Progressive Era: The Politics of Progressive Era Political Historiography,” Journal of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era 1 (Jan. 2002): 68–92.
44 “The Simple Spellers,” Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 1921, 570, 568.
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