""The Dictionary"" was published under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies which included amongst others: American Philosophical Society, American Antiquarian Society, Linguistic Society of America, and Medieval Academy of America.

""The lack of an authoritative dictionary of national biography has been often deplored by American scholars. .. none are comparable .. to the ""British Dictionary of National Biography .. The length of an article has not been detremined solely by the relative importance of the man, but also by the amount of available authentic material, by the nature of his career, and by the completeness of biographies already published .."".