Joshua Kendall talks about the life and legacy of Noah Webster, In The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture, he reveals that there’s more to his story than the dictionary he created—he was a young confidant of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, he started New York City's first daily newspaper, he influenced early copyright law, he helped found Amherst College, served as a representative for both Connecticut and Massachusetts, and was an ardent supporter of a unified, definitively American culture.

205 years ago, a lawyer-turned-textbook writer-turned-newspaper-editor published the first American English dictionary. It was 1806, and the title was “A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language.” That man’s name was Noah Webster. And today, his name is synonymous with the word “dictionary” in the U.S. Joshua Kendall is the author of a new biography on Webster called: “The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster’s Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture.” Joshua joins us from our partner, the WGBH, in Boston.