Catherine Reef's "Noah Webster: Man of Many Words," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Noah Webster: Man of Many Words by Catherine Reef.

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Biographies on the big screen—how we love them! What could be more enthralling than a famous person’s efforts to make it in a hostile world? He or she overcomes addiction, holds a nation together, or simply struggles to be understood, and we can’t tear our eyes away. It’s no wonder figures as diverse as Edith Piaf, Stephen Hawking, Lincoln, and Liberace have been given the cinematic treatment in recent years. So why not Noah Webster?

Imagine the appeal: thrilling panoramas of Revolutionary War battle, tense debates inside Independence Hall and the Connecticut State House, a glorious parade through eighteenth-century Manhattan with thousands of extras in period dress cheering and waving (are you paying attention, Martin Scorsese?); Webster at his desk, busily writing.

Now imagine the pivotal scene in which Webster comes ashore after crossing the Hudson River in 1782, at Newburgh, New York, the site of General George Washington’s headquarters. There he encounters the assembled American forces waiting to be disbanded. Picture him walking among...[read on]

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My Book, The Movie: Noah Webster.

--Marshal Zeringue