Noah Webster turned teaching, journalism, and language study into a program for American cultural independence. After graduating from Yale in 1778, he worked as a teacher and studied law. He believed that the new republic needed educational materials suited to its own circumstances, rather than continued dependence on British schoolbooks. During the 1780s he published a spelling book, grammar, and reader as parts of A Grammatical Institute of the English Language. The spelling book, later widely known as the Blue-Backed Speller, became a staple of classroom instruction.

Webster traveled to promote his books and sought legal protection for authors' work. His campaign for copyright laws combined a concern for literary property with the practical need to support himself from publication. His educational writing encouraged common language and shared civic identity across the states. He also urged changes in spelling, though the more radical reforms he proposed did not all gain acceptance.

An advocate of a stronger national government, Webster wrote political essays and supported adoption of the Constitution. In New York during the 1790s, he edited the American Minerva and other publications associated with Federalist politics. Journalism drew him into contentious disputes over the republic's direction, while his interests extended to disease and public health. His Brief History of Epidemics and Pestilential Diseases appeared in 1799.

A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language appeared in 1806. Webster then devoted many years to the larger American Dictionary of the English Language, published in two volumes in 1828. It contained about 70,000 entries, including vocabulary important to American life, and combined definitions with pronunciation, spelling, and etymological investigation. His study of languages was extensive, although some of his historical theories of language were later superseded. Publication represented a major achievement but did not immediately bring the financial success its reputation might suggest. He continued revising his work, issuing an enlarged edition in 1841 before his death in 1843. Later publishers and editors developed the dictionary tradition associated with his name. Webster's career gave American schools and readers influential tools for common usage while also advancing his own moral and political vision of the nation's culture.