Webster Tome Just Keeps On Printing --Cagle

Webster’s “blue-back speller” sold roughly 100 million copies by the end of the 19th century. The book doubled as one of our nation’s earliest history books as well, containing stories about George Washington and other U.S. heroes.

We have Webster to thank for tweaks to the King’s English, such as dropping the “u” from certain words including color (or switching the order of French words ending in “re,” such as centre) to make it easier for kids to learn phonetically.