•It won the Dartmouth
Medal in 1999- This is presented by RUSA for reference works of outstanding quality and significance.
•Many reviewers praised
the efforts to include previously underrepresented people.
–“In addition to the icons of American history… we find biographies of women from all walks of life: first ladies, midwives,
suffragists and scientists.” - Dudley
Barlow
–“This is the charm of
our craft: The search to reconstruct
what went before, a quest illuminated by those
ever changing prisms that continually place
old questions in new light. To this
search the ANB makes a dazzling
contribution. It tells us about the
American past, and it tells us about
ourselves.” -Arthur Schlesinger Jr.