How Do You Spell Ruzevelt?: A History of Spelling in America Today and Yesterday

Much was at stake in early America as its people struggled to use an evolving language to meet the challenge of new political, economic, and social arrangements. It should come as no surprise, then, that language – in both its spoken and written forms – is fundamentally entwined in national and personal identity. Publishers, politicians, dreamers, schemers, and reformers understood its importance early on, and they sought to bend language to their will. While some think spelling is no longe...