Oh! Beloved Encyclopedia: Remembering, Loving, Learning

In 2014, The Encyclopaedia Britannica announced that, after 244 years in production, printed volumes of the treasured encyclopedia came to an end. The company would continue to provide information, but through its online version. Although book publishing continues to thrive in other categories, sets of encyclopedias now sit languishing on shelves of libraries and used-book bookstores, or—more and more—end up in dumpsters. The only ones that have significant value are those that are true antiques, over 100 years old.


You may want to check out Britannica online. This link shares a series of entries that relate significant events from March 15 in history. Link to britannica.com.


A different story, though, can be told about those lovely, information-filled books during decades gone by. In the middle of the twentieth century, traveling salesmen of various sorts went door-to-door to demonstrate their wares at the homes of potential buyers. Among them, in my neighborhood in Chicago, were several who extolled the benefits of their handy brushes, efficient vacuum cleaners, and charming photographs. But the one whose words had an immediate and positive impact at our house was the encyclopedia salesman.

The wonderful set that we soon acquired was The Encyclopaedia Britannica, indeed a major purchase for my parents in the 1950s. It required both Mom AND Dad to make the final decision, but they were convinced of its value for their three daughters to help assure their success in school. The new, tall, burgundy volumes filled two shelves of the bookcase at the side of our living room fireplace. Golden letters identified each binding so they could be kept in alphabetical order. They were numbered and further distinguished by the first and last entries to be found in that book.


We chose Encyclopaedia Britannica because, despite the company’s beginnings in Scotland, their headquarters were in Chicago and they had a wide network of salespeople there. In other cities, families often purchased other sets such as the World Book Encyclopedia or The Book of Knowledge. And in some areas, families were actually able to purchase a set, one volume at a time, for small sums of money in special offers at their local supermarkets.

At first, my older sisters were the ones who used our treasured books for school research. I, on the other hand, would pull a volume off the shelf, open to any page, enjoy the pictures, and read the entries that looked interesting. Although I wrote nonfiction stories while in the early grades of school, they were based on experiences, not book research. For example, I wrote about the time that Daisy the cow came to visit our school, and about what it was like to visit the milk bottling plant, or how our class made butter by shaking a jar of cream.


The first time I actually had to do research for a factual report was as a homework assignment in third grade at Portage Park School. Our teacher, Miss Jacobson, allowed each of us to choose the topic from among a list of possibilities. I chose to write about Wheat, and although I’d had several days to work on it, Mother let me know that I had “dawdled” too much, so I had to stay up late the night before it was due. I wrote—all in my own words—what I’d learned from the encyclopedia: where and how the grain was grown, what it looked like, how it was harvested, what it was used for. It was all there for me to read and review from the book on the dining room table. The next morning, I was ready. My folder held three pages of careful cursive handwriting in pencil, plus one drawing and a page of photos I’d cut from my dad’s old National Geographic magazine and glued to notebook paper. I secured the pages inside the folder by punching three holes and inserting three brass fasteners. My feelings included relief and a great sense of satisfaction, plus an affection for wheat that seems to have lasted all my life.

As years went by, the encyclopedia was my go-to resource for background on school topics and reports, but with advancing grade levels came responsibilities to use additional books and library resources for term papers. Still, that set of books moved with my parents as they entered new phases of their lives and it, along with the annual yearbooks published by the company, remained as trusted source of information.


The time came when I got married and then we had children. Without having the influence of a traveling salesperson, we had to seek out a way to get a set of encyclopedias. We did just that, and our order turned out to be for World Book. Sure enough, when I asked our kids, now adults, about doing encyclopedia research, they have their own fond tales of what it was like to find and use information gleaned from the good old family encyclopedia set. Thumbing through the volumes was an adventure. Learning the details about each of the states in the U.S. was a joy.


Another author, a writer for The Atlantic magazine, paid tribute to the encyclopedia that is linked here. Loving Encyclopaedia Britannica - The Atlantic


Perhaps YOU have memories that you’d like to share?


Submitted by Greta Nagel, PhD
President and CEO


Resource
Encyclopædia Britannica - Wikipedia -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica