Category Encyclopedia

The Book of Knowledge (1945)

Bran

General Details

Title: The Book of Knowledge
Volumes: 20 (bound into 10 books)
Language: English
Publisher: The Grolier Society Inc.
Year: 1945
Pages:7580

My copy of The Book of Knowledge: The Children's Encyclopedia is 20 volumes bound into 10. The books are copiously illustrated, with woodcuts, reproductions of artwork, photographs, and even a number of color plates. This set has a couple of similarities to the World Book volumes of that time: first, like The World Book, The Book of Knowledge underwent continuous revision, so no two printings are exactly alike. The volumes are also continuously numbered, so that volume 9/10, for example, contains pages 3025 to 3772.

This set is unlike other works featured on this site in that it is not arranged alphabetically. This is done purposefully, as mentioned in multiple prefatory essays, to encourage reading for pleasure. In the "The Purpose and the Plan" on page 9 it is stated: "The work has been planned, not so much to make learning easy, as to make it interesting. [...] The departments of The Book of Knowledge are distributed throughout the set, one or more sections appearing in almost every volume. This distribution has its root in sound psychology and has been found to be one of the strongest features of this work. The pedagogical reason is this: the average child can not concentrate long upon those subjects which require close attention. After a comparatively short period, he must change his occupation or rest." An article on the astronomical significance of the Earth is followed by one on the history and construction of bridges. After reading about fantastical creatures like the unicorn and sphinx, the reader is presented with an article on the Panama Canal. The "departments" of knowledge include "The Earth" (astronomy, geology, chemistry, physics, and meteorology), "Plant Life," "Animal Life," "Our Own Life," "Familiar Things," "Literature," "Stories," "Famous Books," "Wonder Questions," "All Countries," "The United States," "Canada," "Men and Women," "Golden Deeds," "Poetry," "Fine Arts," and "Things to Make and Things to Do."

This feature is repeatedly touted; in his introduction, John H. Finley writes: "It is not like a grown-up encyclopedia, a work of reference which one does not think of reading consecutively or for pleasure (though I have myself read through an encyclopedia of several volumes and found it intensely interesting and profitable reading). This is an encyclopedia in that it gives the child or youth possession of the whole cycle of existence and circle of truth to which he is entitled by birth. The city boy and the country boy find themselves inhabitants of a universe a thousand times more wonderful and interesting than that which most of their elders knew at their age or dreamed of. The facts of physics, biology, astronomy, history and language learned in these boyhood, girlhood days are never forgotten. Through them the child has inextricably woven into his being the life of the race and of the earth, who might otherwise be only a child of a certain valley or prairie, or of a certain street" (3).

Leonard Power's "A Unique Aid in Elementary Education" essay echoes the same sentiment - this set for children is superior to others precisely because it is not alphabetically arranged: "In its sheer power to delight children lies, I think, the greatest value of The Book of Knowledge. Rarely, indeed, are whole sets of books endowed with such power. Other reference works for children attain it to a degree corresponding with their willingness to break up the mechanically alphabetical continuity of their arrangement. But The Book of Knowledge has always held to the sound psychological arrangement appropriate for juveniles, yet providing a kit of tools (indexes) adequate for unlocking any particular door to knowledge" (8).

Sample Entries

To provide fair comparison between all of the works featured in my Reference Work Guide, I try to look up the same entries in each: "umbrella" and "Saint Louis." Due to the unique arrangement of topics in this work, I have to first consult volume 20. This final volume contains a general index, a chronology of the events of World War II, a poetry index, and the full texts of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. "Umbrella" has no entry in the general index, but "St. Louis" can be found on page 7458:

St. Louis. One of the greatest commercial centres in the U.S. 20 miles below the junction of the Missouri with the Mississippi, in Missouri. The river is crossed here by a bridge 2,225 feet long, connecting the city with East St. Louis. Finely built, the city has three cathedrals and two universities, but is famous chiefly for its great manufacture of tobacco, over 80,000,000 pounds of which are annually produced. Other industries include smelting, meat-packing, publishing, flour milling, foundries, and leather and clothing manufactures.
commerce and industries, 17-6046
fur-trading centre, 18-6426
iron and steel industry, 17-6038
Jefferson memorial, note and picture, 17-6047
scene of World's Fair (1904), 3-864
Pictures, 17-6047

Most of the St. Louis references come from an article in volume 17 on "The North Central States Part II" (pp. 6037-6048). St. Louis's iron industry is mentioned on page 6038: "St. Louis once had many blast furnaces. Ore was brought from Pilot Knob and Iron Mountain, a hundred miles away in the Ozarks. As late as 1880 St. Louis was spoken of as the 'City of the Iron Crown.' When the rich deposits of the Ozarks were exhausted the industry declined. Recently Roberts' coke oven, which makes excellent coke out of Illinois coal, has been invented. Across the Mississippi River from St. Louis coke ovens and blast furnaces have been erected. Ore can be secured either from Minnesota or from the rich deposits of Alabama, and a plan is under way to bring the Minnesota ore by way of the Mississippi River. The market for the product will be chiefly in the South and the Southwest. St. Louis may again become the 'City of the Iron Crown.'"

St. Louis is mentioned again later in the article in a section on the changing importance of river transportation in the region: "Commerce on the Mississippi River has come to be of less importance. There are several reasons. The railroads have been built with few curves from one important commercial centre to another. The winding pathway of the river increases the distance from one river port to another. Railroads can operate throughout the year. The Mississippi, especially above St. Louis, is closed to navigation for a part of the winter season. During the latter part of the summer season the water may be too low for the larger boats and barges, and the channel also shifts, and snags form. [...] Large sums have been spent to improve the navigation of the Mississippi and its tributaries, but without much plan. It is hoped that a complete plan will be worked out. The railroads took commerce away from the rivers, but they cannot always carry it all. The Federal Government has established a barge line between St. Louis and New Orleans, and modern docks have been built at St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans. The Ohio River once had a very important commerce in coal and iron and steel products. Recently barges have brought iron and steel goods from Pittsburgh to St. Louis. It is expected that river boats will soon be making regular trips between St. Louis and St. Paul. Transporting heavy products like coal and iron by boat is economical; but we shall probably never see a return of the old days of bustling river traffic" (6040; 6044).

St. Louis is briefly compared to Chicago a couple of times in the article: "While Chicago is the largest meat-packing centre, other cities farther west, as St. Paul, Omaha, Kansas City and St. Louis, are also important. [...] In the early part of the last century, St. Louis was larger than Chicago, and Cincinnati was larger than Cleveland. Now, Chicago is over three times as large as St. Louis, and Cleveland is about twice as large as Cincinnati. The lake cities began to push ahead of the river cities when canals were built. One canal connected Cleveland with the Ohio River, another canal connected Chicago with the Illinois River. The lake cities reached out and captured commerce that had been going to the river cities" (6044; 6046). St. Louis then gets its own full paragraph, as well as a few photographs on the opposing page: "St. Louis was founded on the Mississippi River at a favorable site about twenty miles below the mouth of the Missouri River. Its location between the mouths of the Missouri and Ohio rivers gave it an early advantage when the rivers were the chief arteries of commerce. To-day the rivers are of less importance. St. Louis now has twenty-six railroad lines extending into its trade territory, and is called the gateway to the Southwest. Its location has made it a large wholesale centre. The food and allied products industry ranks next. St. Louis is very fortunate in that it manufactures so many different things that a business depression along a few lines does not affect it as much as it would affect many other cities" (6046).

The article from volume 3 is "The Story of Fairs" (pp. 858-864). Saint Louis is here mentioned briefly: Other noted American expositions include the following: The Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo in 1901; the St. Louis Exposition of 1904, celebrating the Louisiana Purchase, which reached a total attendance of 19,694,855 and cost $15,000,000; the Lewis and Clark Exposition at Portland, Oregon, in 1905; the Panama-Pacific Exposition, held at San Francisco from February to December, 1915, to mark the opening of the Panama Canal; and the Philadelphia Sesqui-Centennial of 1926" (864). Finally, St. Louis is briefly mentioned in volume 18's article "The Western States Part 1," in a section on fur-trading: "Having secured a large number of furs, the traders returned and sold then [sic] in cities or fur-trading posts. It was at this time that St. Louis became a fur-trading post. Even now the city of St. Louis is the centre of fur-trading in this country, although there are so many other larger industries in the city now that few people know that it is a fur centre" (6426).

The Encyclopædia Britannica - 13th Edition (1926)

Bran

General Details

Title: The Encylopædia Britannica Thirteenth Edition
Volumes: 3 (Added on to the 11th edition)
Language: English
Publisher: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company
Year: 1926
Pages:3491

The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature & General Information: The Three New Supplementary Volumes constituting with the Volumes of the Latest Standard Edition The Thirteenth Edition is a set of three supplementary volumes is essentially a redo of the 12th edition supplementary volumes under a new editor, James Lewis Garvin. The volumes (numbered 1, 2, 3) are meant to follow after volume 29 of the 11th edition set (completely replacing the 12th edition supplement) and they contain information for the years between 1910 and 1926. The 12th edition was very focused on the 1st World War; the 13th is an attempt to better process those events in a more succinct fashion, as well as to give more space to advancements in other realms of human activity. As the preface states, "in one way the supplementary three volumes issued after the World War will always keep irreplaceable value as an aid to the future historian and social investigator. They are exhaustive as a record in minute detail of the War itself and every subject connected with it. They reflect the overpowering extent to which people's minds were still possessed and absorbed by the recent convulsion and its more immediate consequences. We may say that, while the tempest was past, the ocean still heaved and surged on all sides and the air was still obscure. [...] And, above all, the proportion of matter occupied by the War and related references bulked so mightily as to allow no adequate space for very many other subjects essential to a general survey of recent information" (vii-viii).

My copy of the 13th edition supplementary volumes is not the same "handy volume issue" size as my copies of the 11th and 12th, but instead is the standard encyclopedia volume size. Each volume contains a list of contributors at the beginning, and the last volume contains an index and a "classification of articles" section like the 11th edition. There is also, on page 1236, a list of the illustration plates (some in color!) and where they can be found among the three volumes. That said, the 13th edition is, like the 12th edition, not nearly as profusely illustrated as the 11th edition was.

The 13th edition does add a new feature to the encyclopedia - before the index in the 3rd volume is a "Chronological Table of Events" listing by day important events from January 1, 1911 to July 31, 1926. Similar to the 12th edition supplements, the entries in the 13th edition hyperlink to the articles in the 11th edition via a parenthetical note.

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." Similar to the 12th edition, there are no "umbrella" updates. There is an update for the "Saint Louis" entry on page 448 of the 3rd supplementary volume.

ST. LOUIS (see 24.24). — The population of St. Louis July 1 1925 was 821,543 (census bureau estimate), an increase of 48,545 since 1920. The increase from 1910 to 1920 was 85,868, or 12%. The population figures are for limits fixed in 1876, when St. Louis city and St. Louis county were separated. An amendment (adopted in 1924) to the constitution of Missouri authorises the extension of the city limits into the county if the plan is approved by the voters of both city and county. The city, the counties of St. Louis and St. Charles in Missouri and the counties of St. Clair and Madison in Illinois form the St. Louis industrial district of the U.S. census.

The city charter of 1914 reduced elective officers to mayor, comptroller, president and board of aldermen, collector, treasurer, recorder of deeds, sheriff and coroner with four-year terms. Each of 28 wards has a resident alderman elected by citywide vote. The mayor, the comptroller and the president of the board of aldermen form a board of estimate and apportionment with control of appropriations. The board of public service (appointive) consists of a president and four directors of divisions — public welfare, public safety, public utilities, and streets and sewers, with departments and bureaus under them. The tax rate of 1925 was $2.57 per $100 assessment. Assessed valuation of realty, personalty and utilities increased from $775,500,000 in 1921 to $1,075,099,930 for the taxes of 1925.

City Improvement Plan. — In 1923 St. Louis voted $87,000,000 in bonds for a great scheme of city improvement. The bonds provided $8,500,000 for widening and $5,800,000 for improving 69 m. of streets; $12,000,000 for waterworks on the Missouri river, doubling the present supply of water taken from the Mississippi; $11,000,000 to put underground the River des Pères in the western suburbs; $2,600,000 for a plaza and park fronting Union station; $2,500,000 for new parks and playgrounds, with $1,300,000 for improving the old ones; $8,000,000 for city-wide electric lighting; $8,000,000 for reconstruction of sewers; $400,000 for an aquarium; $4,000,000 for eleemosynary institutions; and $1,250,000 for city markets. The bonds voted provide also $5,000,000 for a memorial plaza occupying 9 city blocks (27 ac.) between Market and Olive streets, west of Twelfth street boulevard. The new buildings on the plaza will be a courthouse, $4,000,000; and auditorium and convention hall, $5,000,000; and a World War memorial, $1,000,000. Existing public buildings in the plaza group include the municipal courts, the city hall and the public library.

Municipal improvements accomplished since 1910 include a permanent open-air theatre in Forest Park with seats for 9,275; a free steel bridge costing $7,500,000; viaducts over railways, $700,000; and new school buildings, $5,000,000. Additions to Washington University were endowment gifts ($1,500,000) and new buildings for the medical, art, biological and other departments, costing $3,000,000. To St. Louis University James Campbell left an estate of $10,000,000 for a hospital and the advancement of medicine and surgery. Three new hospitals — Barnes, the Jewish and the Children's — represent, with endowments, $5,000,000. From the surplus of the Louisiana purchase exposition the Jefferson memorial was built, costing $500,000, for the Missouri Historical Society.

Trade and Industry. — The total resources of banks and trust companies in 1925 were $523,114,561; deposits, $536,701,672; capital stock $42,950,000. Clearings for 1924 were $7,174,034,000. In 1925 St. Louis industries included the largest plants in the United States for the manufacture of shoes, street cars, stamped ware, stoves and ranges, drugs, tobacco, lead and brick. Operating 11 tanneries and 40 factories, the leading shoe company reached a production of 150,000 pairs daily in 1925. Recent development in metals has been marked, giving St. Louis the largest steel-casting plant in the world. An industrial district employing 55,000 has developed in northwest St. Louis since 1915. Rail freight tonnage received increased from 43,000,000 in 1920 to 52,000,000 in 1923; shipments out increased from 29,000,000 to 35,000,000 in the same years. Receipts of grain in 1924 were 113,974,000 bushels. Receipts of hogs in 1923 were 4,800,000.

(W. B. St.)

The Encyclopædia Britannica - 12th Edition (1922)

Bran

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.)