NOAH WEBSTER. The American Spelling Book. Boston:
West and Richardson, 1817.

Spelling books were introduced into the colonies at the turn of the 18th century. Their objective was to teach spelling, reading, religion, and morality. Until the time of the Declaration of Independence, all spellers printed in the colonies had been reprints of imported British works. The war for American independence made British texts much less acceptable. An early speller written by an American, published on an American press, was the work of a young patriot, Noah Webster. Criticized for the cumbersome title of the 1783 version (Grammatical Institute of the English Language), Webster revised and reissued his book in 1787 under its new title, The American Spelling Book. Webster’s American Spelling Book was the undisputed best seller of introductory reading textbooks in the United States until the 1820s, when it began to look old-fashioned. Webster, therefore, revised his book in 1829. Now called The Elementary Spelling Book (but soon dubbed the “Blue-back speller” because of its blue covers) the new version became another success.

A leather-covered hornbook containing a paper alphabet
from the late 16th century.

Really not a book at all, the hornbook usually consisted of a single sheet of paper containing the alphabet, a shortened syllabary, the invocation, and the Lord’s Prayer. It was pasted to a board or stiff card and covered with a translucent layer of horn (or varnished) to protect it. It was the child’s first literary introduction to Christianity.

WILLIAM H. ELSON and William S. Gray. Basic Pre-Primer. Curriculum Foundation Series. Dick and Jane. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1936.

By 1936, readers were introduced to all the well-known characters: Dick, Jane, Baby, Little Mew the kitten and Spot the dog. Every page has an illustration in full color. The content of this 68-word book is purely realistic, featuring the family that came
to typify mainstream America.