General Details

Title: Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia
Volumes: 8
Language: English
Publisher: A. J. Johnson & Co.
Year: 1887
Pages: 6,772

This has no relation to Samuel Johnson or his dictionary; the Johnson in the title is the American publisher A. J. Johnson. The full title of this encyclopedia is Johnson's (Revised) Universal Cyclopædia: A Scientific and Popular Treasury of Useful Knowledge. Illustrated with Maps, Plans, and Engravings. It was an encyclopedia for "the scholar, the man of business, and the general reader"; it was especially designed to be "the busy man's encyclopædia" ("Publishers' Announcement", v-vi) by being smaller in size than the Encyclopædia Britannica or other similar works. The entire work is dedicated to Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune and former presidential candidate, who suggested it:

The decision of the undersigned to comply in this matter with the wishes of his distinguished friend was reached during a drive with Mr. Greeley in the Central Park of New York City in December, 1870; and in the course of that memorable drive, Mr. Greeley said, emphatically, "I want just three books constantly at my elbow when I am writing: Johnson's Family Atlas of the World, Webster's Dictionary, and an Encyclopædia, which should have every general article abridged as much as possible, or, as they say in Vermont, 'boiled down.'" In another explanation of his views as to the kind of condensation to be given to the work, he said, "I don't care upon whose shoulders Humboldt's cloak may have fallen, or if he had one, even; but I simply want to know when and where he was born, what he did, and when he died. The rest would be good for nothing except to lumber up the book. The lives and labors of men are the best kind of history, and the history that is needed; but lengthy dissertations upon them in a book of reference would be misplaced."

I can't help but think of Mr. Gradgrind in Hard Times while reading the prefaces, which state repeatedly that Mr. Greeley wanted facts, facts, and nothing but the facts: "Comments, discussions, speculations — even, as a rule, criticisms upon the chefs d'œuvre of art or letters — have been avoided. These have no fit place in a book of reference, of which the proper object is to give facts of positive knowledge, and not the opinions of men about such facts" (Preface, x). The editors do note that, since Mr. Greeley passed away before the encyclopedia could be completed, it did not quite end up as fact-focused as he intended, since most readers enjoy a bit of interpretation: "the present Editors have remembered that to most men facts are sometimes made more useful, and principles more intelligible, by concise illustrations of their significancy" (x). Despite claims to present things in an unbiased manner, especially with regards to religion, the work does generally operate from an American and predominantly (protestant) Christian view of the world.

The encyclopedia is illustrated with very detailed woodcuts and a small number of full-page plates (including 5 plates illustrating the editors at the beginning of volume 1 and a color plate in volume 7). Of particular note are the maps, which are beautiful — they were engraved on copper plates especially for the encyclopedia and feature light color toning to separate political states and countries. My copy of this encyclopedia is not in its original bindings, as a previous owner had it professionally rebound sometime in the 1950s, so I cannot comment on the covers. At the end of each volume is an appendix, featuring "supplementary articles and articles received too late for insertion in their order" including large charts of figures; this confused me at first, since I worried the encyclopedia had ended with W instead of Z. There is no proper index.

At the end of the last volume are 24-pages of laudatory comments about the encyclopedia from reviewers and the press, which I found very amusing, given that the reader has already presumably purchased said encyclopedia. A lot of these specifically make mention of how it fares compared to Appleton's, Chamber's and the Britannica. A entire page of them focus on the revised edition of Appleton's (titled American Cyclopædia) and state that it was clearly manipulated by the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore they believe Johnson's is superior. There is some irony to this, as Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia was sold to Appleton in the 1890s and served as the backbone to Appleton's Universal Cyclopædia in the year 1900. Most of the reviews consist of a small paragraph with the same glowing adjectives and buzzwords used by the editors and publishers in the prefaces. Here are a couple of fun ones, though, that stray from the formula:

From Edmund R. Peaslee, M.D., LL,D., Prof. Med. Dept. of Dartmouth College, N. H.
I have a very high estimate of the value of Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia.

From Rev. P. A. Chadbourne, D.D., LL.D., Pres. of Williams College, Williamstown, Mass.
Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia is a standard book of reference.

A few reviews mention the price; Johnson's cost about half of the other leading encyclopedias at the time, but was still quite an investment — it was $48, which in today's dollars would be approximately $1,300.

Sample Entries

For fair comparison between the various reference works featured on this site, I always look up the same two entries: "umbrella" and "Saint Louis." The entry for "umbrella" can be found in volume 8, on page 162. Given how much the encyclopedia editors emphasized their work's brevity, it amuses me that this is probably the longest and most thorough treatment of the umbrella I've seen:

Umbrellas and Parasols. The word umbrella is a diminutive from the Latin umbra, and signifies "a little shade." It is said to have been brought into English from the Italian ombrella, which has the same meaning. Parasol is from the Greek, para, "against," or possibly the Latin parare, to "protect," and sol, the "sun." The two words have, then, substantially the same meaning, a shade or protection from the sun. The Germans and French are more definite in their names for these articles, the German Regenschirm and the French parapluie signifying a protection from the rain, while Sonnenschirm and parasol denote protection from the sun's rays. The umbrella, both as a protection against the rays of the sun and as an emblem of high rank, is of very ancient origin. The Egyptian and Ninevite sculptures, even those of the earliest dates, have frequent representations of it, but only in connection with royalty. The umbrella was spread over the head of the monarch, whether in his chariot, on horseback, or in his great open-air feasts; it appeared like a halo over his head. The Chinese had adopted it at a very early period of their history, and, so far as we can ascertain, were the only people, for many centuries, who did not confine its use to the king and the princes of the blood. With them, however, the man who was privileged to bear an umbrella must be a man of wealth and high position. The common people made their hats so broad and of a shape so similar to that of the umbrella that with those and their cloaks of rushes they were alike protected from sun and rain. The Japanese have used the umbrella ever since they established themselves in their island empire. The use of the umbrella or parasol is universal throughout India, but in Burmah and Siam it is a mark of rank. The king of Burmah has for one of his titles "lord of the twenty-four umbrellas." The umbrellas of the king are of white silk, and no other person is allowed to carry a white one. The princes of the blood have two gilt umbrellas, with handles ten or fifteen feet in length, borne above their heads; the other officers of the state but one. In some of the Hindoo sculptures Vishnu is represented as visiting the infernal regions with his umbrella spread above his head. In Greece the umbrella or parasol was much used by women of rank, and there are frequent allusions to it in the Greek poets. In Rome its use was confined to women and effeminate men. It was used only as a protection from the sun, and was made substantially like those we have now. It seems to have come to the Romans from the Etruscans, rather than the Greeks. Its use extended to all the countries of Southern Europe and Northern Africa. In the Middle Ages its use among women was less common, but it was an emblem of rank in the Church. The cardinals and bishops were allowed to have them borne over their heads in solemn processions. The umbrella was probably introduced into England as early as the fourteenth century, for one of the Harleian MSS. (No. 603) has a drawing of an Anglo-Saxon gentleman walking out with a servant behind him carrying an umbrella over his head, with a handle that slopes backward. The parasol was introduced into general use in France and England, probably from China, about the middle of the seventeenth century. The forms in use and the material indicate their Chinese origin, though they were in use in Italy nearly seventy-five years earlier. Beaumont and Fletcher and Ben Jonson refer to their use. In England they were carried by women as a protection from the rain as well as the sun as early as about 1700. Gay, Dean, Swift, and Addison all refer to this. De Foe in his Robinson Crusoe describes an umbrella made by Robinson and covered with skins. The allusions to them in the poems and essays of the first half of the eighteenth century are so frequent as to show that they were coming into general use for women. But Jonas Hanway, an eccentric traveller and philanthropist, is believed to have been the first man of note who carried one in the streets, and he encountered a great deal of ridicule for doing so. The umbrella generally in use at this time was made of oiled muslin or silk, sometimes of a though oiled paper, and rarely, as in Hanway's case, of silk. They were generally very heavy. Improvements made in their construction have made them light and graceful, and they are now universally used. Aside from their hand-service in protecting the person from sun and rain, they are also largely used for carriages, where they take the place of the leather carriage-top; for express-wagons, omnibuses, trucks, etc., and a modification of them as parachutes for descending from balloons. Another modification is the umbrella tent.

The umbrella, in the general construction of its frame, has undergone very little change in thousands of years, though the materials used have been constantly changing. The Chinese frames, which have been to some extent the models of all others, were made mostly of bamboo and light but strong woods. In Europe the ribs were at first made of rattan or split bamboo, then of wood (white oak being chosen usually), afterward for many years of whalebone. The parts of an umbrella are the top-notch and the runner; a notched wheel or disk into which the ends of the ribs sit, and are secured by a steel wire or sliding ring; the ribs or supports of the umbrella, now made of the best steel (and often grooved) in the finer classes of goods, and of rattan in the cheaper; at the outer end of the ribs they are tapered to a point and finished with a minute head or tip, which may be either plain, plated, or tipped with some other substance. In the cheap rattan ribs these are tipped with metallic caps. The stretchers are short iron rods, flat and light, but strong, extending from the notched wheel or disk to the ribs, each of which has a little perforated projection on its inner side, to which the stretcher is attached by a rivet through its fork-like end. The notched wheel from which the stretchers start has a metallic cylinder called the runner, which slides up and down on the stick of the umbrella; a bent wire, which by its construction forms a simple spring, over which the runner passes in the act of opening the frame, slides into a slot in the runner, and serves to keep the umbrella open; and when it is closed by pressing this simple spring inward, the runner, in the act of closing, passes over a similar spring near the handle, and, being released by the slot, keeps the umbrella closed. The other parts of the umbrella are — the stick, which may be of bamboo, metal, pimento, or any one of fifty other kinds of wood, for the cheaper grades usually of maple, and which is divided into the handle, which is often fanciful and sometimes mounted with ivory, silver or other metals gilt or silvered; the stick or staff which forms the support of the umbrella, and over which the two notched wheels and the runner play; the ferule or end, usually tipped with bone or metal; and the covering, which in the finer qualities is of silk of various grades, and next to this of mohair or alpaca; to some extent other wool or wool and cotton fabrics are used, corresponding to the merinos, cashmeres, or delaines of dress goods; these are known under various names, as regina, victoria, etc. Some waterproof goods are also used. But the larger number of umbrellas are made of ginghams and cotton stuffs of various qualities. The sections of the covering are cut out in triangular pieces and sewed together on sewing-machines, and then hemmed or corded around the outer edge in the same way. They are next drawn upon the open frame (the notched wheel at the top being forced against a little wire stop), and are sewed to the ribs, a metal cap slipped over the ferule, brought down to the covering, and secured by a rivet or pin; the closed umbrella is secured by an elastic band, and the umbrella is complete. Some manufacturers have a metallic cup in which the tips are confined, but this is not generally regarded as an improvement. The paragon frame, in which the ribs and stretchers are grooved — an English invention — has recently been improved by a slight bending inward of the ribs, so that when closed they sit compactly round the stick. Parasols are made in a similar way, though occasionally lined, trimmed, or covered with lace, etc. The English market has long been the best for umbrellas, single manufacturers there making millions of them in a year. Umbrellas have been made here since 1802, and in considerable numbers since 1812, but except for the cheapest goods, the sticks, the ribs, the stretchers, and the coverings were imported. Even now, the greater part of the silk and alpaca, the steel ribs, and a large proportion of the sticks are imported, though the duty on silk and alpaca is 60 per cent., on the ribs 45 per cent., and on the sticks 35 per cent. Our American silk manufacturers are now beginning to produce silks nearly or quite equal to the imported umbrella silk; some of the steel manufacturers are endeavoring to produce frames of quality equal to the English; and Messrs. William A. Drown & Co. of Philadelphia, who have been exporting sticks of their own manufacture for some years, have recently turned their attention to American woods, and hope to succeed in making the umbrella an entirely American production. The census of 1880 reported that there were in the U.S. that year 172 establishments for the manufacture of umbrellas and canes, employing 3608 hands, paying wages during the year amounting to $1,158,682, and producing $6,917,463 worth of goods.

L. P. Brockett.

I looked up the manuscript mentioned above; the Harley Psalter (Harley MS 603) has been digitized by the British Library and is available here. The manuscript dates from the 11th century, according to them, not the 14th as stated above, and they state that the "Anglo-Saxon gentlemen" is a king. The umbrella can be found on page 15v: "15v: Psalm 27: The Lord with three angels (upper left) above a domed church with a king raising his hands and an angel holding an umbrella over his head" (picture below).

The entry on "Saint Louis" can be found in volume 6, on pages 814 and 815:

Saint Louis, city and important R. R. and commercial centre, St. Louis co., Mo. (see map of Missouri, ref. 4-J, for location of county), situated in N. lat. 38° 37' 37.5" and lon. 6° 0' 45.29" W. from Washington. It is on the W. bank of the Mississippi River, 20 miles below the mouth of the Missouri, and has a commanding site, with beautiful suburbs and fine harbor. The city is built on a limestone foundation, undulating back and rising to quite an elevation. The climate is temperate, the water good, fuel cheap and abundant. A natural drainage has greatly facilitated the construction of sewerage, and as a consequence the rate of mortality is very low.

The government of St. Louis consists of a mayor elected for 4 years, a council of thirteen, a House of Delegates of two members from each of the twelve wards, and various commissions having in charge the waterworks, the health, police, fire, and other departments.

The bonded debt of St. Louis was, Apr., 1882, $22,417,000, with a floating debt, the larger part of which is litigated, of $1,420,922. Its assets in the shape of property are valued at $20,512,740. The real and personal estate within the corporation limits amounts to $191,948,000. The rate of assessment for municipal purposes, exclusive of a tax of three-quarters of 1 per cent. to pay interest on bonded debt, is limited to 1 per cent. The length of wharf or river front is 19.15 miles, of which about 3 miles are paved. The water supply is drawn from the Mississippi River some five miles above and received in four immense settling-basins, thence pumped up into distributing reservoirs, and pressure maintained by an elevated water-tower. A paid fire department has added much to the security of property. Its equipment consists of 20 steam fire-engines, 4 hook and ladder companies, and 1 chemical engine; the staff consists of 1 chief, 6 assistants, 1 secretary, and 207 men. The total running expenses for the year, $290,276. Total loss by fire, $1,540,000 on which the insurance was $1,293,615. The number of buildings erected in 1882 was 2276, valued in all at $6,591,707.

The public parks present one of the most attractive features of St. Louis. With wise prevision a great many spacious squares were early reserved for pleasure-grounds, and time and taste have so added to their adornment that they now offer delightful retreats in the midst of the busy life of the city. More conspicuous still, however, are the greater parks, which almost connect in a semicircle from the river on the N. to the river on the S. These embrace the O'Fallon Place, containing 180 acres, the Fair Grounds, of 83 acres, Forest Park, embracing 1374 acres, the Missouri Botanical Garden, of 50 acres, with its immense carpet of flowers, its arboretum embracing every tree known to the temperate climate, and its cabinet of curiosities, Tower Grover Park, with 350 acres, and Carondelet Park, of 120 acres, all closely connected with the city by street railways.

Public Buildings. — St. Louis has many fine buildings. Thus, the new custom-house and post-office is one of the largest and handsomest public edifices in the U.S. The post-office, all government offices, and the U.S. courts are now in this building. It is estimated to have cost $4,000,000. The material is sandstone, the order Renaissance. The Four Courts is a very conspicuous building, used for a prison and a place of justice. The court-house, erected on ground donated in 1823, was half a century in constructing, and has cost $1,250,000. It is built in the form of a Greek cross, with porticoes and columns on either front, and an iron dome in the centre. The Insane Asylum, of imposing architecture, is in the suburbs. In the attempt to secure pure water for the institution an artesian well was sunk 3852 feet, but stopped in granite without the desired success. The building cost $900,000, and has a capacity for 3000 patients. The Emigrants' Home and the Widows' and Infants' Asylum, two noble charities, form conspicuous objects of interest to visitors. The State institution for the blind is an extensive building, on Morgan street, that has recently been much improved and furnished with extensive workshops, designed to give trades to the inmates. It has a capacity for receiving about 200 pupils. Another smaller institution for the deaf and dumb, where great success is attained in teaching them to converse intelligently by articulation, is situated on Bremen Avenue. A tunnel under one of the principal thoroughfares and a union dépôt at a central point have added largely to the facilities of the travelling public.

Bridge. — The most noted structure of St. Louis, however, is the bridge across the Mississippi, which from the boldness of its engineering and the magnificence of its proportion has attained a world-wide celebrity. The entire length is 2225 feet; it contains 5600 tons of steel and iron, whilst its cost exceeded $10,000,000. The superstructure consists of three arches supported by abutments on either shore, and two massive granite piers, built up from the rock foundations 110 feet below the level of the river. Two of the spans are 500 feet each, and the central one 520 feet, being one of the longest spans ever erected. These are framed of steel tubes, sustaining truss-ribbed arches, fastened by braces of charcoal iron. (see Bridge.)

Education. — St. Louis has colleges of great excellence and many noted academies, also numerous private schools. Of sectarian institutions the principal are the St. Louis University, the Academy of Loretto, the Sacred Heart, the Visitation, and the Ursuline. Of those non-sectarian, the Washington University, Mary Institute, and Bonham School are the most important. Its public-school system is admirably organized and largely endowed. In 1812, Congress donated certain vacant lands and common lots within the district of St. Louis to the support of public schools. In 1831 the grant was made effective by additional legislation, and in 1833 the first school board was elected under the new charter and entrusted with custody of the property so acquired. The first building was erected and first school opened in 1846. It was not until 1849 that a permanent tax of 1 mill, afterward increased to 4 mills, was voted for school purposes. In addition, the public-school system derives its proportionate share of the general school fund, which is 25 per cent, of the gross revenue of the State. The property schedule of the board for 1882 exhibits the following: real estate used for school purposes, $2,853,311; held for future uses, $1,357,146; receipts are, from rents, taxes, and other sources, $949,467. Results show a most efficient application of these large resources. Thus, there are now 93 commodious school buildings completed, and 10 temporarily rented, containing a total of 42,610 seats. The number of registered pupils is 53,965; average belonging, 39,220, and average attending, 35,942. The average number of teachers is 973, with salaries aggregating $595,111. The average of attendance is practically 92 per cent.; average cost of tuition per scholar, $16.59; average of incidentals, $2.16. There are 54 schools, with 65 teachers, having Ger. and and Eng. classes, embracing 15,676 German-American and 4582 Anglo-American scholars. Drawing has been introduced systematically throughout all the grades of advancement. Admission is had at six years of age. Corporal punishment is discountenanced. The classification is that of a normal school, high schools, district schools, and the Kindergarten for very young children. Evening schools, introduced some years since, have met with marked success.

Finances. — The financial system of St. Louis consists of 6 national and 18 State banks, with a combined capital of $13,442,964. The savings and time deposits are $8,901,522; demand deposits, $32,827,489; cash and exchange, $7,599,187; loans, discounts, and bonds, $39,898,252. The circulation of the national banks is only $632,850, and the aggregate bank-clearings for the year, $836,129,287, with balances of $138,484,976. In addition to these there are a large number of private banks. The ordinary rate of discount is from 6 to 8 per cent. Total taxation on real estate, including State, county, city, and schools, for 1882 was 2.60 per cent.

Manufactures. — St. Louis by census of 1880 had 2924 manufacturing establishments, with $50,832,885 capital and $114,333,375 products. Among the principal manufactures are flour- and grist-mill products, $13,783,178; slaughtering and meat-packing, not including retail butchering, $8,424,064; foundry and machine shop products, $6,020,380; tobacco, $4,813,769; malt liquors, $4,535,630; iron and steel, $3,950,530. The vast coal-fields which underlie the bluffs across the river, extending for many miles, supply cheap and inexhaustible fuel. The manufacture of steel and iron is as yet in its infancy, although numerous furnaces are congregated along the river, and one of the largest rolling-mills in the world for the manufacture of steel rails is in full operation within its limits.

Commerce. — Its commerce, which depended for a long time upon river navigation, received great impulse from the railroad connections. Deepening of the channel of the Mississippi at its mouth, so as to admit sea-going vessels of the largest size, and confining its waters along the whole length by levees, promise to give St. Louis more importance still as a dépôt where the grain of the Northwest will collect for shipment to Europe. This is manifest from the rapid increase in the shipments of bulk grain to New Orleans, which in 1870 were 66,000 bushels, and in 1880 had risen to 12,933,947 bushels. There are now 16 trunk lines of railroad entering the city, comprising 18,225 miles. The receipts of freight by R.R. aggregated 6,750,575 tons as against 3,462,937 tons of shipments for the year. The total arrival of steamers was 2480, of barges 1824, and freights received 852,410 tons as against 884,025 shipped.

Custom-house exhibits for 1882 show collections $1,382,673; foreign value warehoused, $1,122,347. Since Congress has begun to spend millions in improving the channel of the Mississippi River, the commercial advantages of St. Louis are in many respects unequalled. It commands over 6000 miles of direct river navigation, accessible to steamers and barges for a large part of the year.

History. — It was founded Feb. 15, 1764, by Pierre Laclede Lingueste as a trading-post, and named in honor of Louis XV. of France. Next year, however, the arrival of St. Ange de Bellerive and his command from Fort Chartres, which had been surrendered to the English, gave it additional importance, and made it the capital of Upper Louisiana. Although subject to the authority of Spain by the treaty concluded at Paris in 1763, St. Louis was practically under French control, and remained so until formal possession was taken by Don Pedro Piernas Nov. 29, 1770. In 1800 the territory of Lousiana was retroceded to France, and on Apr. 30, 1803, was purchased by the U.S. The transfer of this vast domain took place in St. Louis Mar. 9, 1804. The town was incorporated Nov. 9, 1809. It was not until Aug. 2, 1817, that the first steamboat landed at its wharf. This constituted an era in the history of the city, and an American population soon began to flow into it. John Jacob Astor located the Western department of his company there in 1819. A city charter was given to St. Louis Dec. 9, 1822. This was amended from time to time, and occasionally an entirely novel charter was furnished by the legislature, and nearly always with injurious effect upon some of the great property interests designed to be protected. At last the evil became so serious as to demand intervention, and the city charter has finally been placed under the ægis of the constitution. In 1836 St. Louis was organized as a separate municipality. For five-and-twenty succeeding years unprecedented growth and prosperity attended upon St. Louis. The financial reverses beginning in 1837 and extending through the next decade were serious inflictions upon a young metropolis; but the great flood of 1844, desolating all the fertile valleys, and surpassing even that of 1785, followed by the fearful ravages of the cholera, beginning in 1848 and sweeping off a sixth of the entire population, and succeeded in turn by the great fire of 1849, which destroyed one-third of the city and almost obliterated its marine, gave it a great shock that to almost any other community would have proved irreparable.

The following table illustrates its progress in population:

B. Gratz Brown.