General Details
Title: The Encylopædia Britannica Twelfth Edition (Handy Volume Issue)
Volumes: 3 (Added on to the 11th edition)
Language: English
Publisher: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company
Year: 1922
Pages:3477
The full title of this three-volume set is The Encyclopædia Britannica: the New Volumes Constituting, in Combination with the Existing Volumes of the Eleventh Edition, the Twelfth Edition of That Work, and Also Supplying a New, Distinctive, and Independent Library of Reference Dealing with Events and Developments of the Period 1910 to 1921 Inclusive. As the title suggests, these three volumes append on to the full 11th-edition set to constitute the 12th-edition of the encyclopedia. They are numbered 30, 31, and 32 so as to fit at the end of the standard 11th edition set. This supplement was necessitated, according to the editorial preface, by the war and its developments (vii). Both the 11th and the 12th featured Hugh Chisholm as chief editor. The preface spends a lot of time explaining why the editor felt it important to release a supplement just a decade after the last edition, but it also features some beautiful language warning the reader not to elevate the information in the new volumes - concerned as they are with essentially a single tumultuous decade - above the information found in the old volumes: "It remains as true as ever that contemporary human life and interests are organically related not only to the immediate developments of one preceding decade but to those of a succession of earlier decades and epochs, back to the abysses of time. The great Drama is of the Ages, and can only be appreciated with all its Acts on record. The eye which looks only at the passing scene is too often colour-blind" (ix).
A common theme running throughout the preface is that things have changed drastically for the world at large: The "war of 1914-9 cut a Grand Canyon gash in the whole intellectual structure of the world" (x). The breakneck pace of change and development being experienced complicates the job of an encyclopedia editor; how can one record for a general readership the latest advances in science and technology when there is no period of rest or pause? As Chisholm writes, "it required the experience obtained during the gestation of these New Volumes to teach the Editor how much simpler a matter it is to create such a "Library of Education" when the world is at peace and is progressing normally, as it was in the years preceding 1911, than when, as recently, it is everywhere in convulsion, nobody being able to tell from week to week what he would be doing next, or where some new complication or even revolution, political, economic, industrial or scientific, might break out, to the upsetting of any attempt at orderly statement of the progress of events and the crystallization of opinion" (x). One positive development from the past decade was a newfound awareness of the world outside of one's own country; the Encyclopædia Britannica embraces this expanded horizon with the 12th edition, as the editor made a concerted effort to gather material from contributors around the world, from the countries that had just been fighting and beyond. This brings new perspectives; for example, "it will be noted that, for the first time in the history of the Britannica, the article on Japan is contributed by a Japanese" (xii).
The three volumes are a mix of new entries (e.g. "Abbe, Cleveland") and amendments/additions to existing entries. The latter are hyperlinked to the 11th-edition with notes (e.g. the entry on "Abbey, Edwin Austin" instructs you to "see 1.11", or visit page 11 in volume 1, to see the events of Mr. Abbey's life before 1910; only the last two years of his life are covered in the 12th edition entry). A very large portion of this edition is devoted to the World War and to the scientific/military developments that arose because of it. An index for the three supplement volumes is found at the end of volume 32 (beginning at page 1145). That is followed by a list of contributors. These three volumes are not quite as illustrated as the 11th edition, but they still feature a number of technical drawings, photographs, and especially maps - there are large fold-out maps for every major battle of the World War.
Sample Entries
For ease of comparison, I attempt to look up the same two entries in each reference work featured in my guide: "umbrella" and "Saint Louis." There were no new developments in umbrella technology in the decade following the 11th edition, so these three volumes lack an entry for "umbrella." There is an update for the "Saint Louis" entry, however, on page 344 of volume 32:
ST. LOUIS (see 24.24). — The pop. of St. Louis in 1920 was 772,897, an increase of 85,868 since 1910, or 12.5%. In the preceding decade the increase was 111,791 or 19.4%. The area remained as fixed in 1876, but the increasing pop. and industries have spread beyond these limits. The city, the counties of St. Louis and St. Charles in Missouri and the counties of St. Clair and Madison in Illinois are grouped as the St. Louis district and treated as a whole in the U.S. industrial census. In 1920 the district contained 1,145,443 inhabitants.
Municipal Government and Activities. — A new charter adopted in 1914 reduced the elective officers to mayor, comptroller, president and board of aldermen, collector, treasurer, recorder of deeds, sheriff and coroner, with terms of four years. The legislative branch is unicameral. Each of the 28 wards has a resident alderman elected by the entire city vote, one-half of the board retiring biennially. Mayor, comptroller and president of the board of aldermen form a board of estimate and apportionment. An appointive board of public service consists of a president and four directors of divisions, public welfare, public safety, public utilities, and streets and sewers. Municipal departments and bureaus are grouped in the four divisions. The president of the board has charge of public work and improvements. In 1919 the city's outstanding bonds amounted to $19,884,000, to which in 1920 were added $5,500,000 for removal of railway grade crossings, for a municipal farm to afford better treatment of the tubercular and insane, for new engine houses and reconstruction of streets and for municipal lighting equipment. The tax rate for 1920-1 was $2.55 per $100 assessed valuation, divided as follows: state purposes, $0.18; public schools $0.78; municipal government, $1.51; public library, $0.04; art museum, $0.02; zoological park, $0.02. The assessed valuation of realty and personalty for 1920-1 was $777,500,000. City planning was undertaken in 1912 with a commission of nine citizens and five ex-officio members. The work done includes a concrete dock, mechanically equipped to convey freight between river and railways. A zoning law determines definitely the residential, industrial, and commercial districts; 29 street widenings, openings and cut-offs were under construction in 1921. Neighbourhood parks, playgrounds and squares were increased to 80, embracing 2,908 acres. A pageant and masque given by 2,000 participants before audiences of 100,000 led to the construction in 1917 of a municipal theatre in Forest Park, with accommodation for 9,270. At a cost of $7,200,000, the city completed in 11917 a municipal bridge of massive steel construction, double track and double deck, across the Mississippi. About five years earlier the McKinley bridge was erected by the Illinois Traction Co., primarily to admit interurban electric trains. Kingshighway viaduct, 855 ft. long, completed in 1912 at a cost of $500,000, crosses the railway tracks and unites western sections of the city. A municipal court building, a city jail and a children's detention house, all of stone, were erected, the first in 1912, the others in succeeding years, at a cost of $1,855,000.
Charities and Education. — At a cost of $5,000,000 a new medical school, hospital and children's hospital, occupying several city blocks fronting on Forest Park, have been completed since 1911. The hospital, opened in 1914, represents an investment of $2,000,000, the sum left 50 years ago by Robert A. Barnes, a banker whose name the institution bears. The medical school, a department of Washington University, includes laboratory, anatomical, clinical and other buildings. In 1914 James Campbell left an estate, values at $10,000,000, in trust to St. Louis University (subject to the life income of certain surviving relatives) for the erection and support of a hospital and for the advancement of medicine and surgery. From the surplus of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was constructed in 1914 the Jefferson Memorial costing $485,000 and devoted to the collections of the Missouri Historical Society. On new public school buildings and expansions of old, St. Louis expended during 1910-20, $3,177,000.
Finance. — In 1920 the assets of the banks and trust companies of St. Louis were $637,615,811.45, and bank clearings were $8,294,027,135; in 1910 the latter were $3,727,949,379. The First National Bank, with total resources of $155,953,137, was formed in 1919 by a consolidation of three existing banks.
Commerce and Industry. — According to the records of the Merchants' Exchange and the Chamber of Commerce, 35 lines of industry in the St. Louis district did a business in 1920 of $1,582,957,145. Some of the largest items of wholesale trade in 1920 were dry goods, $240,000,000; carpets, rugs and linoleums, also $240,000,000; boots and shoes, $175,000,000; groceries, $175,000,000; railway supplies, $210,000,000; hardware, $115,000,000; foundry products, $125,000,000. St. Louis receives 70,000 H.P. by a 110,000-volt transmission line from the Keokuk dam in the Mississippi at Keokuk, Ia. Motor licenses issued in 1914-5 numbered 9,867, and 45,949 in 1919-20. The position of St. Louis as the largest horse and mule market in the world was maintained, the volume of business in 1919 being $50,000,000. The city continued to be the largest primary fur market of the world, with sales of $27,200,000 in 1920. Sales of meat products in 1919 were $128,000,000; hog receipts, 3,650,534; head cattle receipts, 1,500,000. The foreign trade of St. Louis was $100,000,000 in 1920, an increase of $25,000,000 over 1919. The total tonnage shipped out of St. Louis in 1920, domestic and export, was 29,036,405 (by rail~ and 166,140 (by water); tonnage received in the same year was 43,104,519 (by rail) and 177,925 (by water).
The more important new buildings of the period 1910-20 with the amounts they cost were: the Statler hotel, $3,000,000; the Warwick hotel, $400,000; the cathedral of St. Louis, $2,000,000; the Missouri athletic club, $500,000; the Railway Exchange, $3,000,000, 18 storeys, covering an entire city block; the University club, $600,000; the Young Women's Christian Association, $500,000; the Boatmen's bank, $750,000; the Arcade, $1,250,000; the Post-Dispatch building, $500,000; the Bevo Manufacturing Company, $1,000,000. The cost of new buildings in 1919 was $20,538,450.
The St. Louis Republic, a morning newspaper founded in 1808, was purchased in 1919 by the St. Louis Globe-Democrat (a Republican paper) and discontinued. This left two morning newspapers, the Globe-Democrat, and the Westliche Post (German). There was a marked increase in the circulation of the evening papers.
When the Armistice was signed Nov. 11 1918 one in 13 of the city's pop. — 56,944 — was in the army, navy or marine corps. The total casualties were 2,511, of which 1,384 were killed in battle. Of the three Liberty Loans, St. Louis took the equivalent of 25% of the assessed value of the city's realty and personalty. On the third, fourth and fifth calls for loans the St. Louis Federal Reserve district was the first to subscribe its quota. On the third loan the city subscribed $65 for every man, woman and child, nearly three times the quota.
(W. B. St.)